It would appear that my title is perhaps exactly where we are at in relation to Corn Bunting Miliaria calandra in my home county. 2009 has seen a single bird reported which hung around north of Linden Hall and presumably the same bird at Bywell in August. Even that individual was in the middle of an identity crisis singing like a Yellowhammer at times. You look at species requiring a description and take for example Balearic Shearwater and Sabine's Gull both of which have had in excess of ten individuals recorded this year and wonder why Corn Bunting shouldn't be amongst them.
Now for those of you wizened & grey tapping away with a single finger reading this it might seem ludicrous to think you couldn't identify a Corn Bunting but consider for a second what if you were sixteen again. OK consider if you were sixteen again and you managed to get out of bed. Now you don't have a car, foreign holidays are about to become a thing of the past due to increased Fuel Levys where are you going to connect with Corn Bunting?
Durham is the obvious answer and it would be great to think the mini-recovery that has happened there can continue and spread but that is going to take a great deal of hard work and changes in a number of farming practices which may or may not happen.
Obviously any change is the responsibility of the CRC but you have to wonder how much longer they can resist adding it to at least the list requiring brief notes. A sad reflection on our times.
The saddest thing for me is that it's happened on our watch and no one seems to have lifted a finger to try and prevent it from reaching this point (I'll stand corrected if I have missed an initiative). Look at the literature and you can chart the decline from Northumberland's Birds (1983) ' a well represented breeding resident' via Northumbrian Birds (2001) ' uncommon and declining breeding resident' to the situation today outlined above. Corn Bunting may still be abundant elsewhere in Europe particularly in the East in countries such as Romania and Croatia but for me the loss of it as a county bird is without parallel, I cannot think of another breeding species that has undergone such a catastrophic decline in my lifetime and summer will never be the same without those jangling keys.
Galloway, B. & Meek, E.R (1978-83) Northumberland's Birds. Trans, Nat History Soc. Northumbria 44 (1-3): 1-195
Kerr, I. (2001) Northumbrian Birds. NTBC 1-184